A blog for reviews… that's really not much of a blog

Foreword: I’ve been meaning to get to this game for a while now, but took so long to finish it even when I started. Even then, I was able to fight off my lust for other games (that were stashed in somewhere in my hard drive), and finish this one.

So bestow onto me your compliments! Muhahahaha!! -shot-

Jokes aside, let’s get right along for the review. Produced by Ex-One, I knew of this company from before, when I tried a game called “Futsuno Fantasy“. My review for the aforementioned game wasn’t a good one, but I kinda had hope that this game would be a good one since Omochikaeri’s blog was rather detailed about explaining the summary (and this implies that it’s a good game).

But instead, I found myself pretty disgusted at this game. I couldn’t find any good elements that would make this game considered “good”, except for the fact that there was a constant theme.

Summary: Yuuya arrives back at the Ahome Town after a long separation from his family. Collapsing on the first minute of arrival, he is awakened to the view of Master Panti– I mean, Mana and Koromo, who are his cousins one year younger and older respectively. The game then introduces a character named Nozomi, as well as a strange character named Yukina.

Yuuya, from the very first day in this new environment, experiences migraines that continuously irritate him. Believing that this was only because he was not used to the area, he will be shocked when he is suddenly taken to a world where there is no one; no students engaging in after school activities, no faculty members in the school, and everything is silent. After panicking, he finds Yukina who seems to be able to help him return, but… What did he just experience?

Story Length: Long (35 hours)
Complete Story Clearing Difficulty: Very Easy
Comments: Very straightforward and episodic story, where you choose a storyline and enjoy the show. Make sure, however, that you choose to break all the “manifestations” (You’ll understand what I mean as you go through the story). Clicking on the manifestation will break it, while clicking outside of it will leave it alone.

Generally speaking, I’d suggest to go through each heroine’s route completely, starting with Mana, Koromo, and then Nozomi. Each heroine’s story is separated into “Reality”, “Fantasy”, and “After”, with the exception of Yukina who only has “Truth” and “After” stories. Obviously, “After” stories aren’t unlocked until you clear everything.

Character Design Rating: 3/10
Story Rating: 4/10
Game Quality: Low
Overall Rating: 3/10
Rating Comments: Animated sprites, but only blinking eyes and moving lips was the extent. (aka, unnecessary), and often only caused my old laptop to lag instead of enhance the gameplay. Strange character design that just doesn’t seem to match up, and despite having corresponding plotline, the story was crappy as always.

Rather than that, I find it hilarious that someone tagged this game as “Parody” on VNDB. It just goes to show that one can’t trust the community on there, and only supports the reason why I left it. /endVNDBbadmouthing

Character Summary: Holy crap, whoever did character design is probably either an amateur or a damn idiot. Let’s see if I can keep calm and drink Dr. Pepper properly explain my rage towards these characters.

Starting off with Mana, we have our typical deredere imouto character. Despite being deredere, she does have some “tsun” in there, which can make the reader fall for this character early on (I purposely didn’t say anything about her unusually large breast size that’s literally bigger than her face). Nonetheless, this physical property usually exposes this poor girl to Yuuya’s teasing, and leads to Mana either 1) acting defensively, or 2) beating the living crap out of our perverted protagonist.

According to the story, Mana was very weak when she was younger, so Yuuya is relieved to be hit by Mana (lol, that masochism) which suggests that Mana grew (if you know what I mean) to be strong.

Despite this, it is then shown that Mana suddenly seems to be blanking out in class or become tired. Perhaps this has something to do with her “secret”, that Yukina asks Yuuya to find out more about.

Koromo, the older sister of Mana, is considered a loli-kyonyuu (small, but has large breasts) character. Incidentally, all the characters in this game seem to have a large breast size… HMMMMMM

Jokes aside, Koromo plays the role of a “succubus” within the story. She uses her sexuality usually as a mind weapon against Yuuya, which gets him under her control relatively easily. While I do hate people who act like this in the real world, I guess the mere fact that Koromo was voiced by Yuuko Gotou made it okay-ish.

Koromo’s route reveals that she is actually not the actual biological sister of Mana, nor related to Yuuya. This fact troubles Yuuya, who soon becomes very close to Koromo after a series of events.

I’ll be honest; if I had to forcefully choose, Nozomi’s route was probably the best one there. Despite this, I found this tsundere character to be largely unfavorable (despite the CV being Oto Agumi), because her “tsun” was extremely low quality.

Rants aside, this strange girl who is the role model in school and the student council president is only tied with the rest of the members through Mana, since the two are teammates in the school’s tennis team. It is a regular event that Nozomi repels Yuuya when he comes to savor the “boing” of Mana’s tennis outfit.

However, it is soon shown that Nozomi is related in more than just Mana’s senpai in the tennis team.

And last we have Yukina, a mysterious girl famous for her sexual approaches towards Yuuya, with her ambiguous “Don’t worry, Leave it to me” quotes that leave other characters confused about how to answer to this girl. Usually quiet, this girl is strange in the sense that the first encounter with her involves an accident in the bath where she just sat there naked while Yuuya was preparing for his “death”.

Nonetheless, the game is most explanatory for this character; she loves eating, lazing around, and money. It is shown that she is unable to complete simple arithmetic, but when involving money, she becomes a lightning-speed calculator. She also hates studying, while proclaiming to the entire school that she is a “Snow Woman”.

It is Yukina that explains that this “world” is filled with hidden truths that can only be detected by the manifestation of a snowflake if the holder tells a lie. It also seems that while being unable to “break” these manifestations by herself, Yukina wishes to destroy these snowflake-shaped objects, and requests Yuuya for help.

Sexual Content: Moderate

Comments: As explained above, the theme of this game revolves around Yuuya “looking” for these manifestations (snowflake shaped thingies), since these are created when the holder lies about an important topic related to their wish. Also considered a “curse”, Yukina convinces Yuuya to break these manifestations with this element. However, since breaking these snowflakes mean “changing the world”, Yuuya then has to suffer extreme pain after breaking any of these manifestations.

This process is repeated 3 times, which seems to be when the heroine is “freed” from her curse, and shows her real identity…

…

…

…

WHAT THE FUCK!?

Seriously, all that breaking of the manifestation stuff is cool, but what’s the point of all this?! I’ve seen the conclusion of the game, and it only slightly mentions why something like this happened in this particular town, that mysteriously affected this group of people, and now someone completely unrelated must get off his lazy butt and solve the problem. Even after that, once you hear about the “cause” of all this mess, you’ll just want to facepalm at the stupidity of the plot.

Pure Love Story my ass. Give me back my 20+ hours I wasted in hopes that the game would get better =_=;;

Affection for the Characters: Low.

CG Quality: Moderate
Music Quality: Low

Addictiveness: Very Low

Conclusion: I was dumb for even having a shred of hope in Ex-One’s games. There’s a fandisc for this title, but like hell I’d be playing it. Awesome CVs, but 1/3 of them don’t even play a role in the storyline and are just plastered there for the lawls.

I was as dumb as you for having waste my time with this game as well. Fortunately, I dropped after an hour or so. For a moment I thought it could get a little better later, but by reading your review it seems like I did the right thing. I am tired of stories with omnipotent heroines and a pathetic protagonist who just get beaten the living crap out for no good reason.

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